Pyotr Shamshin

Painter, draughtsman, teacher. Son of academician of painting Mikhail Shamshin (1777–1846). Studied under Pyotr Basin at the Imperial Academy of Arts (from 1821). Awarded a second silver medal (1827), two first silver medals (1831, 1832), two gold medals (1833), title of fourteenth-class artist and a foreign fellowship in Italy (1836–43). Returned to Russia and taught drawing at the Imperial Academy of Arts. Academician (1844), professor (1853), adjunct professor (1859), first-class professor (1869), rector of painting and sculpture (1883). Painted icons and pictures for St Isaac’s Cathedral in St Petersburg, Church of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, Zion Cathedral in Tiflis and the Russian Embassy in Athens. Decorated the Room of Etruscan Vases in the Hermitage.